Reference: M42
Category: Mechanics
Purpose: Demonstrates the independence of the compenents of forces.
Description: A ball is placed between two mallets, opposite a hole in the apparatus. The mallets are raised and released to hit the ball simultaneously. Taking the ground to be the xy-plane, the x components of the forces from the two mallets are in opposite directions. If they are equal, they will cancel. The y components combine because they are in the same direction. Therefore if both mallets are raised to the same height before release, the ball will fly directly through the hole.
